


Believe Me, It's Not Easy When I Look Back

by mixterhodgins



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff and Angst, Gaslighting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 02:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7080970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mixterhodgins/pseuds/mixterhodgins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Good morning, Mr. Reese,” Finch smiled towards him, drawing Reese’s gaze back to his body. Finch’s kind eyes were shining blue through the pale ochre light of the room. It was a beautiful day, and John’s partner was even more radiant, generosity and affection in every flick of his wrist as he pushed the bacon around the pan. John sat up with a sleepy smile, appreciating the way that Harold’s eyes followed the sculpted contour of his chest as the duvet pooled around his hips. “Or should I say good afternoon,” Finch continued as he turned back to the popping grease.<br/>Time stopped.<br/>John felt a heavy, sticky guilt burst open in his chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Believe Me, It's Not Easy When I Look Back

**Author's Note:**

> i also want to warn other people who are survivors of abuse and/or rape that this fic draws pretty heavily on my actual lived experiences of those things, and includes kara using common gaslighting tactics on john. i want you to be aware, and remember to keep yourself safe. 
> 
> aside from that, thank you for reading, and please let me know what you think of the fic/fic concept in the comments! comments really really inspire me to keep reading, and so many people have really made my day brighter with what they've said.  
> you can also contact me at lionelfusco.tumblr.com if you want to chat or reccomend/prompt- i am ALWAYS taking prompts  
> eta: o shit also the titles from bedouin dress by fleet foxes

_ [13:24, September 18, 2013, Columbus Park, Manhattan] _

 

Sunlight poked through the spaces between Reese’s thick eyelashes, warming his face and rousing him from a calm, dreamless sleep into the open air of the loft. Beams of light broke through the tall glass windows, catching dust mites, billows of air from the stove fan making the tiny particles dance in the sun and bringing the wafting scent of sizzling turkey bacon into his nose. He stretched his curled form out on the empty bed, spreading his languid body over the dent left in the mattress by Harold’s form. Finch himself was now fully dressed, and buzzing around the spacious kitchen. John watched his partner for a moment, leaning back on a folded arm against the headboard. Harold, each movement beautifully calculated, artistically efficient, unpacked a round loaf of sweet, crusty bread from a brown paper bag. Finch confidently grabbed crisp green lettuce and sliced heirloom tomatoes from a cutting board on his left, and John could practically taste the familiar sandwich already. Finch didn’t like mayonnaise- even if John himself was partial to it, so, there would be none. Reese didn’t exactly mind. There  _ would _ be plenty of his free-range organic turkey bacon piled on top, cut thickly for him by the butcher for a smiling slip of a five dollar bill, and the bread would be fresh and fulfilling. Though both he and Harold would admit that John was the better cook in the relationship, there were some dishes that Finch made that had become necessary comforts in John’s life. As silly as it sounded in his mind, Finch’s BLT was a symbol of his safety as much as the soft white sheets of the bed they’d spoon and kiss in, or the sticky leather of the couch they’d spend quiet nights home on.

“Good morning, Mr. Reese,” Finch smiled towards him, drawing Reese’s gaze back to his body. Finch’s kind eyes were shining blue through the pale ochre light of the room. It was a beautiful day, and John’s partner was even more radiant, generosity and affection in every flick of his wrist as he pushed the bacon around the pan. John sat up with a sleepy smile, appreciating the way that Harold’s eyes followed the sculpted contour of his chest as the duvet pooled around his hips. “Or should I say good afternoon,” Finch continued as he turned back to the popping grease.

Time stopped.

John felt a heavy, sticky guilt burst open in his chest. He turned to look at the bedside clock robotically, every muscle burdened with dread and failure.  _ 13:28 _ . Over seven hours later than his alarm. Before John could feel too much more about it, the numbness in his limbs spread to his head, distancing him from the dust mites, the turkey bacon, Harold. The warmth of the room slipped away, the light becoming harsh and aggressive, tears of shame springing in his eyes.

“John?”

 

_ [7:09, August 14th, 2007, Madrid, Spain] _

 

Every nerve in John’s body screamed. He twisted against the wet sheets underneath him, muscles clenching painfully, chest heaving through the sudden cold that wracked his underfed body.  _ Kara. _ He knew it was her before he opened his eyes- the searing nerve pain, the shock and fear that caught in his throat, the conditioned shame that the action drew out of him all spoke her name like nothing else. He opened his eyes, sitting up straight in bed. A-half melted ice cube slid off his rolling, aching abdomen, joining the hundreds of others that were now covering the mattress where he had been sleeping. The shock the ice water sent through his system combined with the acrid recollection of what had happened the night before on the same mattress made Reese heave. He turned away from the shadowed figure in the corner of his eye to helplessly cough up the little bile left in his stomach onto the sopping wet sheet.

“Ew.” Kara’s voice bit into him, tears of shame prickling in his eyes already, shoulders hunching in defeat. John hated her. He hated her voice, he hated her eyes, her hair, her ice, her cruel, cold heart. Another painful surge of caustic bile spilled over John’s shaking lips. He hated her hands. “You slept in again, Reese,” she chided, dropping the empty wine bucket on his leg. He winced at the metal bouncing against his shin.

“You turned off the alarm,” he accused, staring at her knees. There was a dark red bruise on one of them, probably from the car accident they’d been in two days ago. There were always things like that, injuries and weaknesses, that proved that Kara was mortal. No matter how many of them he saw, Reese still couldn’t see her as human. At least, not anymore.

“Funny you should blame me when you didn’t even set it last night,” Kara replied as she sat down on the side of the bed next to him. Her hand was too soft when it came to rest on his upper thigh. Reese lay still, staring wordlessly at the speckled yellow wall. He felt dead, already, rot creeping through his body from where her hand lay on his leg, decaying him from the outside in. He remembered setting the alarm early that morning, his weak, shaking arms barely able to press down the buttons while Kara drifted off into sleep next to him. She was lying, and John knew it. But he also knew that the objective truth didn’t matter in his job, not anymore. Nothing that happened to him was based on it, the horrific, gut-wrenching incongruity of everything that he was forced to do couldn’t be born out of any sense of worldly fact. No, this was all based on Kara’s truths- the ones she’d been taught by the Agency, and the ones she’d decided herself. 

“You can make it up to me later, lover,” Kara said with a wink, her hand brushing over a part of his body he never wanted her to touch. Shudders ran through Reese’s body again with the implicit threat that Kara was broadcasting. It was a threat of the same violence that kept him foggy and distant during the day, crying and hateful at night. It was a promise that it would happen again, if they both managed to survive another day. To Reese’s continual disappointment, they always did. Kara’s fingers burned a hole in his skin where they lingered. In his mind, John prayed a Hail Mary, begging anyone listening that the hour of his death would come that day, on the field. Every day, he prayed, and still no way out came. With a slap to his thigh that barely cut through his mental fog, Kara stood, the ice water dripping off her hands an echo of what John knew lay inside her heart. 

This time, he waited for her to leave the room before dry heaving onto the mattress.

 

_ [13:31, September 18, 2013, Columbus Park, Manhattan] _

 

“John,” Harold repeated, voice bursting with worry as he turned off the stove and crossed the sparse room. John watched Harold’s feet as he approached, focusing on the way that the shiny leather of his shoes reflected the light of the room. It was pretty, in a faraway way, the dark red leather glimmering in the sun. Soon, the oxfords stopped moving, toes underneath the edge of the bed, and it look Reese a moment to understand that their presence by his side meant that the rest of Finch was there, as well. He looked up at his partner’s face. 

Harold was concerned, that much was clear. He was wrinkled with a small frown, and his hand was held out- why, Reese couldn’t understand. Hesitantly, he put his own in Harold’s delicate grasp. “What’s wrong?” Finch asked quietly, squeezing his hand as he sat down on the side of the bed. John watched Finch’s free hand in silence, until it gently lifted and settled on Reese’s stubbly cheek. The hand pressed carefully, respectfully, urging Reese’s eyes to lift to Harold’s. Somewhere distant, John thought about how much he’d come to love Finch’s eyes. They were withdrawn at times, secretive, reticent, yes, but Reese had noticed that changing, every day since they’d met. Every day, Finch was opening up to him more, letting him see deeper beneath the very thick shell he had grown. Every day, Finch was falling more in love with him. Reese yearned to give him that same intimate truth, that same honesty. He thought hard on his words before speaking.

“Kara,” he began, and saw Harold’s face immediately stiffen. Finch had known the depth of Kara’s abuse for a while, now, but John had yet to find it in himself to share any details. Not until that point, at least. He searched for the words to describe the way that Kara had made him fear everything, everything, down to the only hours of the day that he could escape what they were doing. “Kara didn’t like it when I slept in. Really let me know.” He couldn’t look at the scowl of anger that twisted on Harold’s face, and let his gaze slip to his tie. “I feel guilty,” he stated, finally. There was much more to say, and John was frustrated that he couldn’t make the testimony come. The memories were already fading away, in a way that made him both grateful and angry, and John was helpless to leave it at that. At least for today. Harold’s tie bobbed when his lungs took a deep breath. Blue paisley, trailing into the front of his maroon waistcoat. Reese let himself fall forwards, slumping his tired shoulders onto the bed, head resting on Finch’s knee. In a moment, Harold’s hand was in his hair, feather-light touches stroking the grey hairs against his temple like a baby magpie finding its first silver.

“Even in the years we’ve spent in this employment, I have yet to find someone who frightens and disgusts me as much as Ms. Stanton,” Harold whispered, relaxing Reese with every caress.  “And I never even met the woman myself.” He paused, and though John’s eyes were closed, he knew that he was being appraised for a reaction. Harold continued. “I am so very, very sorry that you not only had to know her, but had to be the victim of her cruelty. For so long.” John willed the tears out of his eyes. A scared, tired part of him  wished that Finch would stop picking at the scab, would let him hide in the beliefs that Kara had made true about him. But Harold was always one to lance a wound. 

“The Machine has not called today, John. Nor any of our friends. No emergencies, no responsibilities. You had a physically taxing day yesterday- in fact, the last twenty years of your life have been a very long, very taxing day.” Finch paused to cough into his sleeve. “You deserve the rest,” he cooed softly, thumb tracing the shell of John’s ear. “I promise, there is nothing wrong with sleeping in. You deserve to.” John didn’t know how to react. He couldn’t believe it, not yet. But he knew, at least, that Harold did- that his worth to Finch was not based on how he could hurt or be hurt, but how he could heal, and help heal. He found his lips easing into a small smile, found himself comfortable again to let the afternoon sunlight shine into his raw eyes. Staring at the man above him, Reese wondered if anyone had told Finch how beautiful he was before Reese had taken to saying it once a day. John did not, could not know, but something about the way that Harold seemed sincerely touched every time he told him made him doubt it he had been told nearly enough.

“I see you made sandwiches,” John said, finally, taking Finch’s hand off his ear and holding it in his. Finch’s smile was a beacon of tenderness.

“Yes,” Harold replied, turning his gaze to the bedside clock. “And I believe it’s the perfect time for breakfast.” The infection purged from his body by Harold’s warm, antiseptic words, John wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to sit up and kiss the man if he had wanted to. 


End file.
